Bits from the Hard Drive
by Domina Temporis
Summary: Drabble series, all the little moments of Sherlock's (and everyone else's) lives we never get to see. Basically a place to put whatever short little Sherlock stories I may write, will update periodically as the mood strikes me.
1. The Egg

"Hey, freak!" The shout, rather annoyingly, brought Sherlock out of his contemplative reverie. Turning around, before he could even see who was taunting him, he was hit with something hard and gooey. An egg, that was the only thing that could be that particular combination. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut so that none of the yolk would drip into them. He felt his hair hanging gooey over his forehead, and dreaded the amount of time it would take to get the egg out of it. That was time he had planned to spend in experimenting on the effect of sodium nitrate on vellum (and, no, he did _not_ kill the sheep to get the vellum). The laughter of the boys followed Sherlock as he did his best to ignore them and get home as fast as possible, admittedly a difficult thing when one was trying to keep egg out of one's eyes.

He finally did make it home and slipped up the stairs, trying to avoid his parents. He knew his mother would only suffocate him with her concern, and his father would tell him he should try to be more like everyone else if he didn't want to be taunted. He had almost made it to the bathroom to try and wash the egg out of his hair when he ran straight into someone.

"Sherlock? What happened?" Mycroft, seventeen and almost ready to go to university, asked, eyeing his little brother carefully.

"You know what happened, Mycroft," Sherlock said defensively, shaking his dark, egg-filled locks out of his eyes.

"Yes, I do," Mycroft answered. His deductive abilities were already almost fully trained, while Sherlock's were coming along nicely, but were still childish. All the same, Mycroft knew instantly what had happened. "Who was it?"

"It doesn't matter, there are too many of them to be sure," Sherlock answered tiredly, wanting only to get the egg out of his hair before it hardened.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said warningly, knowing that his little brother was perfectly able to identify voices, and there was no excuse for hiding such intelligence.

"Oh, all right," Sherlock said with a petulant whine, "It was Jake Asper and Sean Richardson, and a bunch of their friends I didn't know." That was true; Jake and Sean were two years older than Sherlock, though only one school year above him, since Sherlock was accelerated. He was a favorite target of theirs and had been for years. Though normally they stuck to words and not physical abuse; Sherlock hoped this wasn't going to become a habit.

"Hmm," was Mycroft's only response, but he mercifully let Sherlock go, and he spent the next hour carefully washing the egg out of his hair, dreading the next day.

The next day, Sherlock rushed out of school, hoping he'd avoid any altercations with Jake and Sean. Nothing could equal his surprise when he saw Jake and Sean absolutely _cowering_ near the rubbish tips, and his own brother walking calmly away.

Sherlock never found out exactly what it was Mycroft had said to them (physical threats were too brutish for him) but Jake and Sean left him alone after that, and what was more, told all their friends to leave Sherlock alone as well. The word spread that while Sherlock Holmes might be a freak, his brother was s_cary_, and it didn't surprise Sherlock at all that Mycroft ended up basically running the country. He often got amusement out of imagining Mycroft intimidating the Prime Minister the way he'd intimidated Sherlock's tormentors all those years ago.

* * *

A/N I wrote this ages ago, but in addition to tearing my emotions to shreds, Series 3 has left me fascinated with Sherlock and Mycroft's childhoods, so I thought I'd start my drabble series off with this :)


	2. Take a Sad Song

"What are we doing here, John?" Sherlock looked around the electronics store with an expression of utmost boredom.

"We are here," John said absentmindedly, looking over the store's advertisements in the paper, "to buy a new TV. Ours is broken, remember?"

"I only missed by a little bit," Sherlock said irritably.

"A little bit is still enough to shoot a hole in the screen, Sherlock," John answered, his tone full of strained patience. "This isn't a conversation I should have to have with a grown man. Remind me to take you to the shooting range so you can learn to aim."

Sherlock tried and failed to come up with a retort, but the truth remained that John was a crack shot, and Sherlock could stand to learn a lot from him about firearms.

"How large a screen do you think we need?" John asked.

"I don't know," Sherlock answered. Then, just to annoy John, "A larger screen will give me a better target."

"Good point, smaller it is." At this point, they both noticed the sales assistant abruptly decide to leave them after hearing this. Catching each other's eye, Sherlock and John burst out laughing.

"He was going to overcharge us anyway. His flatmate doesn't pay his rent on time," Sherlock said.

"Right," John said, too used to Sherlock to be surprised anymore. "Well, I think this one should work." He pointed out a flatscreen that was the same size as their old TV and Sherlock just nodded, not really interested.

John loaded the box onto their handcart, and then, inexplicably started singing along to the song playing over the shop's speakers, "Na, na na nanana na, hey Jude."

"I've never heard you sing before," Sherlock said, putting all his attention on John. Singing wasn't usual. John didn't sing. That didn't make sense.

"Oh, I don't know. It's the Beatles. Hey Jude," John shrugged. "You kind of have to sing along to it."

"The who?" Sherlock asked.

"No, not them, the Beatles," John corrected absently, then looked back at Sherlock in disbelief. "Don't tell me you've never heard of the Beatles."

Sherlock hated admitting he didn't know something and had to remind himself there was no _need _for him to know who this band was. "We listened to classical music in my house, John."

John shook his head, "You and I are going home right now and listening to the Beatles. No buts. You're musical, you should appreciate them."

"Fine," Sherlock said reluctantly. Except, when they got home, he was surprised to find that he actually liked the band. He found them interesting, both musically and lyrically. Not that he'd ever tell John that.

Not until John entered the sitting room one day to find Sherlock figuring out how to play "Let It Be" on the violin. The smug smile didn't leave his face all day.

* * *

A/N No explanation, just that I'm a shameless Beatles fan so here you go.


	3. Anderson's Explanation

Spoilers for the first episode of S3

Characters: Anderson

* * *

"Why'd you start up this group anyway?" One of the young women who came to Anderson's first meeting of what he had decided to call The Empty Hearse asked. "I read it in the papers, you were one of the police officers who said he was a fake."

Everyone in the room turned to stare at Anderson, who swallowed nervously. "Why are you listening to the papers? They're the ones that gave out that whole fake life story."

"Yeah, but Sherlock was arrested on police evidence. They must have believed; there are pictures of him and John escaping in handcuffs. And you were a police officer," Laura said, as if it was obvious.

"So was it you?" One of the other members asked.

"All right, yes, it was me," Anderson said, getting fed up. Instantly, ten pairs of eyes were looking daggers at him. "Well, it wasn't just me. You have to understand, he was a pain to work with. None of us could stand him. And the feeling was mutual." Sherlock's well-placed barbs were still ringing in his ears all these months later. Only now they came with a wistfulness that had certainly never been present while the detective was alive.

"So, if you hated him so much, and he hated you, why'd you start this group?" The original questioner asked. Anderson noticed she was wearing a black armband on her sleeve, in mourning.

"I bet it's guilt," Laura said. "Can't live with yourself now that you made him jump off of St. Bart's."

"I didn't make him do that, because he _didn't do it,"_ Anderson said. "The whole point of this group is that he's still alive!" The silence that greeted this proclamation might as well have been full of chirping crickets. Anderson sighed and went on, "Fine. All right. I didn't want…what happened to happen. And I do think he's alive. He would have seen it coming and prepared." It had given him such a shiver when he realized Sherlock had actually done it. It was an incredible feeling of power that terrified him slightly. "But I am guilty, and not because of Sherlock."

"Who, then?"

"He means John, you idiot," Laura answered impatiently.

Anderson nodded. "The day of the funeral. I don't know why I decided to go; he wouldn't have wanted me there. Neither of them would have, knowing what I'd done. But I never saw anyone as lost as John Watson was that day." He let his mind drift back into the memories of that day, only a few months ago. The church had been almost empty. None of Sherlock's family were there, only those few who considered him a friend. Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, a few restaurant owners. All looking appropriately sad, or simply shocked by the loss. And John.

"He didn't move. Didn't blink. His expression didn't change once. He just stared at the coffin with this deadened look, like if he stared at it hard enough it would change what had happened. No one could get through to him, it was like there was this fog between him and everyone else." He'd never seen anyone look so _lonely_, made worse since no one had ever really seen John outside of Sherlock's company.

Anderson brought himself back to the present, "That's when I realized what we'd done. And I'm going to make up for it by making sure everyone knows what really happened."

Everyone was silent before Laura ventured to ask, "How is John now?"

Anderson shrugged. "No one sees him. He moved out of 221b right away. He doesn't see any of us anymore." He'd never really given John much consideration before; aside from wondering how Sherlock had managed to get him to stick around. After, when it was too late, he saw the truth. Sherlock hadn't done anything aside from being himself. John was the one who had done the sticking around. And without anyone to stick around for, he was a broken man.

Nobody had taken John into account before St. Bart's. Not until he was the only one left and it was too late.


	4. New Beginnings

The first time she saw him, Mary Morstan thought that John Watson was too nice, too attractive to be ignoring all the life around him. He couldn't have been more than 35. It seemed a shame.

The second time she saw him, Mary tried to talk to him, and even though he was perfectly friendly, she noticed he made no attempt to prolong the conversation. Instead of being affronted, she found herself wondering why. She thought he looked sad.

The third time Mary saw John, she decided she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Well, that wasn't strictly true. John bumped into her and spilled his lunch all over her.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Here, let me make it up to you."

"Do you like tea? Everyone likes tea, don't they?" Mary asked brightly, not letting the opportunity pass.

John paused, looking somewhat hesitant before smiling civilly and agreeing to a quick cup of tea in a nearby cafe.

It was a good thing Mary wasn't fazed by awkward conversations, because it was the most awkward one she'd had for a while.

"Are you from London?"

"Not originally, no." Flat tone, no invitation to ask further.

Mary pressed on. "I've seen you come in here a few times, do you work nearby?"

John smiled patiently, "At a hospital."

"Oh, the one two blocks over?"

"That's the one," John answered before going back to his tea. "You?"

"Oh, I'm a teacher," Mary said. "At the grammar school on Barron's Street."

"Hmm," John said, and Mary realized he was only trying to keep up the minimum level of politeness required. It only made her more interested. There had to be something underneath that polite exterior.

The next few times they ran into each other they said hi, followed by a few hurried conversations in the doorway until Mary decided to try again.

"I was just heading out to lunch. Care to join me?"

"Um...sure," John said uncertainly.

The conversation over their paninis was as stilted and awkward as it had been the first time, until Mary sat back and said, "So what's your story, anyway?"

John half-chuckled, "What do you mean, what's my story?"

"I mean, you're always alone and you never want to talk to anyone. I had to pry conversation out of you last time. So what is it?"

"Maybe I'm just not friendly?" John suggested.

"No, that's not it," Mary said. "Unfriendly people don't make a point of accepting lunch invitations from people they barely know."

John started to laugh quietly, followed by what she could have sworn was a flinch.

"What's the matter? I'm not that painful to be with, am I?"

John shook his head, "Oh, no, it's not you. Not at all." She waited for him to go on. "It's just, what you said, it reminded me of someone." The look that crossed his face then wasn't just a flinch; it was as if windows had opened onto a freezing January day, with no hope of anything other than emptiness and cold.

Realizing he'd let on more than he intended, John looked away. "Look, it's a long story, and you probably won't believe me anyway."

Mary shrugged, "I've got time. Besides, you look like you could do with telling someone, and you don't know how I'll react."

John paused, and Mary gave his foot a gentle prod under the table, "I'm listening."

Seeming to reach a decision, John took a breath and started. "To answer your earlier question, I've been in London for a little over two years. I was an Army doctor and was invalided out of Afghanistan. And…I was lost. I couldn't afford London, I didn't have any family I wanted to see. I came back with a limp and no prospects."

Mary nodded sympathetically. She'd seen London chew up and spit out more than one person who'd come there in hopes of something better. It wasn't a matter of strength, but of circumstances.

"Anyway," John went on, "one day, I ran into an old friend from med school, and he introduced me to someone who needed a flatmate." He took a minute as the memories came back and almost laughed. "He introduced me to someone who told me my life story just by looking at me, and the next day we were looking at a flat together."

"His name was Sherlock Holmes." It was obvious even saying the name was painful, because he winced visibly before going on.

"He told me he was a consulting detective, he solved crimes the police couldn't figure out, and took cases from the public. Only the interesting ones, not the ones that could be figured out with a little simple forensics. And for some reason, he took me on the case he was working on that day."

"Hang on," Mary said. "Sherlock Holmes…was he…?"

"The Hero of Reichenbach? St. Bart's?" John asked. "Yes, that was him."

"Oh, God," Mary said. "I never followed his career but I read the story in the papers."

Almost as if he hadn't heard her, John went on. "Sherlock nearly died on that first case, but he caught the serial killer we were chasing. Well, I say it was the first case, it wasn't. Not for him. But it was our first case."

"After that, I moved in, and soon we were a unit. Sherlock and John, solving crimes, catching the criminals. We were a good team. Hardly any of them got away." John held no pride in his voice saying this, but he didn't try to hide it either.

"Sorry," he added, "He hated false modesty, Sherlock. He'd be livid if I downplayed his reputation. Over the next year, the crimes got bigger, and so did we. I started keeping a blog of our cases and it had a pretty big following. But then, there was Moriarty."

"The jewel thief?" Mary asked.

"That's the one," John said. "He was _obsessed_ with Sherlock. He went after us just to play games with him, just to pitch their brainpower against each other. And finally, it worked."

"What happened?" Mary asked, who hadn't followed the case that closely.

"He somehow got everyone believing that Sherlock was a fake; that he couldn't know the things he did and that he'd set up all the cases he'd solved. And Sherlock…" John stopped, then continued, his voice breaking. "The thing is, I still can't get why he did it. He didn't care what anyone thought of him. He was angry with me for caring about them. But whatever the reason, he jumped off the roof of St. Bart's. And I was there."

John said the last part very quickly; clearly he didn't want to dwell on it. "And that was it. He was gone. Nothing's been the same since then."

"Of course not," Mary said.

Having a sympathetic ear was making John more talkative, "Doing the cases with Sherlock, they gave me a purpose after I got back from Afghanistan. Once that was gone, I had nothing again. And that's it. My story."

Mary watched him for a few seconds before saying, "Well, you've taken me through the events. Now, what was he like? Sherlock?"

"What was Sherlock like?" John asked, before letting out a brief laugh. "Well, he was annoying as hell most of the time. He thought he knew better than everyone else, and he let you know it. Thing is, he was usually right. He was a real-life genius. But he was on a completely different wavelength from everyone else. He didn't get things that were so obvious to the rest of the world. Like why you should care what people think of you. That you don't get the best results if you insult your colleagues' intelligence constantly. That the Earth went around the Sun."

Mary was staring at him in disbelief when John shook his head, "Oh, no that one's true. We once had a whole argument about it. Anyway, what else was he like? Oh, he liked to do experiments. On body parts. And leave them all over the flat. He'd play the violin at 3 AM, he wouldn't talk for days if he was in the wrong mood, which was whenever he didn't have a case. Once he got so bored he shot a happy face into our sitting room wall. He really didn't care about anyone. Except me."

"Why you?" Mary asked.

"I don't know," John said. "I've never been able to figure it out. I'm nothing special. But I was to him. The first time we met Moriarty, he'd kidnapped me. Strapped a bomb to my chest and made me confront Sherlock in his place. He told me what to say over a wire and when I did, the look on Sherlock's face. He thought I was Moriarty for a brief second and it was like…the only person he'd ever trusted had betrayed him. It was the worst moment of my life. Up until the day at St. Bart's."

For a second, he looked as if he was going to go one before he held himself back and said simply, "He was the best friend I've ever had, weird as that sounds. And I miss him, every day."

Mary sat forward and placed her hand over John's. He looked at her a little oddly but it felt natural to her. "I'm sorry, John. Really, I am. He obviously meant a lot to you."

"Yes, well, now you know. Why I'm always alone."

Mary wrote her number on a little slip of paper and slid it across the table. "You don't have to be. If you ever want to talk, or just to see another person, someone who won't remind you of everything, call me."

"Why? Why me?" John asked.

"He obviously thought you were worth it," Mary said. "If he was the genius you say he was, don't you think he could be right?"

The first signs of a true smile, not one based in sarcasm or a fake one trying to hide the pain, crossed John's face, and he pulled out his wallet, prepared to pay.

"No charge for you," the owner said, swooping in to intercept them, "You're Sherlock's friend, right? He got me out of a very tight spot once. I owe him. So you don't pay here, OK?"

"Oh, well, thank you, thank you very much," John said.

"It's no problem, Dr. Watson. We read the blog. We still believe." John nodded and left, Mary behind him, wondering about the eccentric, arrogant genius who'd inspired such loyalty in so many people. She didn't have to wonder about John Watson. She already knew he was worth it.

* * *

A/N So this wasn't actually the chapter I meant to post, I got mixed up between this and one of my others. That's what you get for posting too quickly -_-

It's probably pretty obvious this isn't canon, I wrote this long before S3 aired just as an exercise. I'll leave it up since it's been up there now. Sorry everyone!


	5. Don't Touch That Dial!

A/N So this is the chapter I meant to post last night. No series 3 spoilers aside from Mary's presence

* * *

One of the things John immediately liked about Mary was that she didn't tell him to move on.

Not like everyone else.

"Oh, John, you should try and live your life. He wouldn't want you to sit around doing nothing." Well, yes, he probably _would_ have wanted that, since in life Sherlock always assumed John was just around whenever the detective needed him to be.

"You've got to move on, you're young. You've got your whole life ahead of you." He wouldn't have had a life without meeting Sherlock in the first place.

"John, really, I know he was your friend, but it's been months now." Was acceptable mourning time for a friend only supposed to last a few weeks? Was he supposed to quantify grief by the level of affection society pre-approved for friendship?

But Mary was different. She listened. She asked questions, on those few occasions he wanted to talk about it.

Most of the time they just did other things. Normal things. Nothing that had anything to do with crime, or police work. Much sooner than he'd expected, they were serious. Not yet move-in serious, but close.

"Hi," Mary said. "Sorry I'm late. I got held up with my new phone. They had to give me a new number for some reason."

"I thought you said they wouldn't," John said as Mary sat down at the table in the nicer-than-usual restaurant. It was their six-month anniversary, after all.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Mary said with a shrug. "Anyway, here's my new number." She slid the receipt with the number on it across the table. "And you had better put me in your speed dial this time."

"Don't worry, you'll be number one in my contacts," John said as he went to add her to his speed dial. Then he sighed heavily as he read the first name.

"What's the matter?" Mary asked.

"Sherlock's still my number one contact," John said. Press "1" and Sherlock's now-defunct phone would ring. After the first few weeks, when the temptation to call or text it was almost overwhelming, John mostly just ignored it. Mary's expression grew sympathetic and John shook his head. "It's fine. I can delete hi- it. I should have done it ages ago." He was about to do it when Mary took his hand.

"John, it's fine. You don't have to. I can be your number 2."

"Mary, that's ridiculous. You're the most important person in my life and it's not fair to place you after a dead man." All the same, his finger hovered over "Delete contact." Deleting Sherlock would feel so…final. No more texts, no more rambling voicemails detailing the solution to some crime or another. The grief hit him hard right then, harder than it had in months, until he was aware of Mary saying his name.

"John, when you're ready, you'll move on," Mary said sincerely. "If you're not ready, you shouldn't and I don't want to be the reason for that."

"Hang on, there has to be a way to change the contact order without deleting the contact," John said, fiddling with the phone. "Here we go. Mary Morstan, number 1."

"And Sherlock?"

"Still in here. Just not the speed dial," John said. "I just didn't want to lose these." He passed the phone over, all of Sherlock's text messages open. Some of them were instructions to buy milk or shampoo. Others were instructions about what to do on one case or another. Still others were instructions on what information to get from Scotland Yard, complete with rants about their stupidity.

"There are a lot of instructions here," Mary said mildly, reading through them.

"Yeah, that was Sherlock. Never ask when you can order."

Mary's eyes widened and she read aloud, "'Don't come home. The mold has escaped.' Then, 'Not escaped as much as grown.'"

John laughed, "_That_ was an interesting day. Last time I ever allowed him to store experiments in my bedroom."

Mary laughed too, "I wish I'd known him."

John shook his head, "You wouldn't have liked him."

"Why not?"

"No one did."

Mary scoffed at this, "You did."

John stopped, "Have I ever told you that you're the best thing that ever could have happened to me?"

"I don't know…I can't remember," Mary said with a mischievous smile.

"Well, then, I'll have to make sure you remember." John smiled back and they moved on to other things. It wasn't until much later that night that John realized that the only way the two people who mattered most to him; that he cared about the most, could ever both be with him was as numbers on his phone.


End file.
